This invention relates to process cheese and more particularly to a method and apparatus for molding process cheese into uniform rectangular columns.
The production of process cheese involves the heating of natural cheese and emulsification with alkaline salts. Process cheese is normally sold in three forms. These include slices, five-pound loafs, and bulk sizes which can be cut into consumer sizes. The largest size block of process cheese which is normally produced is about 40 pounds and has a volume of about 1,000 cubic inches. This is about the maximum size block of process cheese that can be molded and still be sufficiently cooled. If process cheese is not cooled rapidly enough, it develops a brownish appearance or other discoloration.
The most common practice is to mold process cheese into a form consisting of corrugated paper with an inner plastic liner. Rounded corners frequently result because the plastic liner seldom adheres perfectly to the inside of the corrugated paper form. In addition, the corrugated form has a tendency to bulge due to the heat and the mass of the cheese. Also, the surface of the cheese block tends to be relatively irregular as a result of the fact that as process cheese cools, air bubbles trapped when the cheese is agitated during the manufacturing process rise to the surface. Because marketing requires that the cheese block be relatively square, these bulges and irregularities, amounting to about 10 percent of the cheese block, must be trimmed. Since only about half of this trim can be reworked into the cheese-making process, substantial wastage results.